Prophecy of Merlin (Prophetia Merlini), sometimes called The Prophecy of Ambrosius Merlin concerning the Seven Kings, is a 12th-century poem written in Latin hexameters by John of Cornwall, which he claimed was based or revived from a lost manuscript in the Cornish language.
The text is an example of the popular prophetic writings attributed to the sage Merlin, which ascribe to the early bard prophecies relevant to the author's time.
In this case the prophecies relate to the struggle between Stephen of Blois and the Empress Matilda, but the poem also contains local Cornish allusions of great interest.
John of Cornwall undertook to expound the prophecy of Merlin iuxta nostrum Britannicum.
[2] The manuscript attracted little attention from the scholarly world until 1876 when Whitley Stokes undertook a brief analysis of the Cornish and Welsh vocabulary found in John's marginal commentary.